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Audiences no more

Today as I was working on the Request for Proposals for the csumb.edu/rethink project, a fundamental shift in mindset crystalized. When considering the people who use our website, I realized that we'd been calling them "audiences" for as long as I can remember, and something about that label just didn't fit with the types of things we're thinking about for the future of the site.

The term "audience" became part of the lingo as we evolved from traditional marketing to early iterations of the website. Asking who the target audience for a brochure, or brochure-ware, made good sense and certainly still applies when creating a distinct piece of content. It's always good to have an idea who you are talking to.

But that kind of thinking about audiences feels like we expect them to be passive, to just sit out there consuming what we put out. With social media, marketers and PR folks learned that the era of the one-way communication is long gone. Even if you are still reaching out to an audience, they'll be both superfans and hecklers in the crowd, ready to talk back.

The term audience also became confusing, because many of our users fall into more than one of the audience categories we had defined: some are both alumni and staff members, or staff members and current students, or administrators and parents. Talking about someone being part of multiple audiences just sounds weird, and doesn't help us think about why our users are on the site. Further complicating things, content creators often identified their target audience as everyone.

If there is one thing our user research has taught us, its that everyone on our site is there for a reason, carrying out some personal agenda. Maybe it's checking email, turning in a homework assignment, or looking for the fax number for the financial aid office.

Rather than thinking about our users as audience members, it makes more sense to think of them as actors - people actively engaged in doing something. Our site is more like the stage and props than the performance itself. Our users have the starring roles.

So now, rather than thinking about our users as audience members, I'm going to consider the role they're playing.

What roles might this content matter to? A student trying to figure out her class schedule? A potential donor researching a program of interest? Both? To really stretch the metaphor, how can we help these heroes reach their goals?

It's a subtle shift, but I think the change in terminology reflects more than semantics. It's an acknowledgement that it's not about us, it's about our users. With this mindset, I think we'll be more successful in finding the ways technology can streamline their experience, and rethinking a website so that it supports the people who are using it for a reason.

Switching the body text to a sans serif font increases legibility, which is a measure of how easy it is to distinguish one letter from another. Characters in a sans serif typeface don’t have the tails that serif typeface characters have, which adds space between characters making them easier to read.

Changing the header font to a wider sans serif typeface improves legibility because header characters are no longer compressed, which makes characters difficult to read. We also adjusted the font size of all headers to improve readability, which refers to how easy it is to read words, phrases, blocks of copy such as a book. With…

On Monday, May 22, 2017, Web Services will improve its editor used to create content in csumb.edu.

This will be the first significant improvement to the editor since we launched the last redesign in February 2015.

In addition, we will provide some significant updates to how we create and display key elements, including:Improving how events get made, shared across campus, and displayed on the page.Enabling the ability to "clip" content from one CSUMB site and used on another.Improving how news is displayed on a page.Introducing several new content blocks that will provide more functionality.
Test the new editor
You can test the new editor on a separate site with duplicated content. Our internal user experience team is testing as well and we encourage you to play with it until it breaks. Then tell us about it at webservices@csumb.edu

We will also hold presentations at upcoming Technology Open Labs starting May 5 and running through May 19. Each lab will hold a presentation at …

Coming on Monday, May 22, when we go live with the new editor , you will see a new editing block called “clipping.”

You will be able to clip individual blocks on a page and insert them into your own page. This allows you to publish content that belongs to someone else, and when they update it, the content updates on your page as well.

Screenshots
To start clipping start by adding the clipping block to the page where you want the content of another page.

After adding the clipping block, begin clipping by clicking the begin clipping button.

After clicking "Begin clipping" you will now be in clipping mode. You can navigate to the page with the content you want to clip by using the site's navigation or if you already know the URL you can enter the full URL.

When you are on the page you clip by clicking the "clip part of this page" button to be able to select the blocks you want to clip from the page.